Recent news that authorities in Beijing, Shanghai and the southern city of Guangzhou will suspend the text-messaging function on cell phones allegedly used to transmit pornographic content has created heated debates in various social circles.

Due to the lack of specific definitions of pornographic texts, some cell-phone users, even a few celebrities, have reportedly transmitted porn content to see if they could try to challenge the monitoring network.

Beijing Mobile, a subsidiary of China Mobile, one of the nation's largest cellular providers, recently announced that the text-messaging function would be suspended on cell phones if the volume of disseminated "unhealthy and illegal" content reached a certain volume and if other cellphone users report cases of this kind of abuse. The government will conduct investigations to confirm whether the transmitted text messages were indeed pornographic, it said.